Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Bono's voice was in rough shape in that entire era and had surgery after. Album was never really finished and Discotheque was a buzz kill. Larry had wrist issues and was missing from the recording of the album.

I like the Willie Williams comment in his diary from the tour, something about learning the hard way that irony doesn't travel between countries/cultures very well.

BTW, still in my top 3 U2 albums. Vinyl can be had for $40-50 and smokes the cd.

Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Originally Posted by Bumblebee

Bono's voice was in rough shape in that entire era and had surgery after. Album was never really finished and Discotheque was a buzz kill. Larry had wrist issues and was missing from the recording of the album.

I like the Willie Williams comment in his diary from the tour, something about learning the hard way that irony doesn't travel between countries/cultures very well.

BTW, still in my top 3 U2 albums. Vinyl can be had for $40-50 and smokes the cd.

Bono has sounded like shit since Zoo TV now that I think about it and never really got any better.

Ever see the figures from this tour? Some shows drew less than 20,000 in a stadium. That's what I am talking about here.

Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Bono has sounded like shit since Zoo TV now that I think about it and never really got any better.

Ever see the figures from this tour? Some shows drew less than 20,000 in a stadium. That's what I am talking about here.

Bono was hitting stuff in 2001, 2005 and 2006 that would have been unthinkable on Popmart.

It was the 3rd or 4th biggest tour of all time by the time it ended - yes it had a half dozen or so soft selling show. You know who else has played to under 20,000 in a US stadiums - The Beatles!! Even shows on their first national US tour had several thousand unsold tickets.

Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Originally Posted by Bumblebee

Bono's voice was in rough shape in that entire era and had surgery after. Album was never really finished and Discotheque was a buzz kill. Larry had wrist issues and was missing from the recording of the album.

I like the Willie Williams comment in his diary from the tour, something about learning the hard way that irony doesn't travel between countries/cultures very well.

BTW, still in my top 3 U2 albums. Vinyl can be had for $40-50 and smokes the cd.

Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Originally Posted by Bumblebee

Bono was hitting stuff in 2001, 2005 and 2006 that would have been unthinkable on Popmart.

It was the 3rd or 4th biggest tour of all time by the time it ended - yes it had a half dozen or so soft selling show. You know who else has played to under 20,000 in a US stadiums - The Beatles!! Even shows on their first national US tour had several thousand unsold tickets.

The Beatles didn't do that on the downswing, they were the first stadium shows ever.

And it was more than half a dozen softselling shows, there were at least a few dozen that were poorly attended and also many unused hold dates.

Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Originally Posted by SlowMotionApocalypse

360 was kinda weak even before you start comparing to Zoo TV which was the greatest stadium tour of all time.

On the Vertigo tour they came out for the encore and opened with ZOO TV images/video. Kicked into Zoo Station. I've seen U2 6 times (Popmart, ATYCLB, Vertigo x 2, 360 x 2) and that was by far the most exciting moment for me. Can only imagine what ZOO TV was like.

Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

This is a really random thread to start in April 2013, did I miss something?

But anyway, I was there at Popmart. I thought it was really fun to be a part of live. Their opener was RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!! That was really fucking cool to me, I moshed with my sister out by the corner risers, where it seemed all the Rage fans gathered. It was the first time I had seen either band and they both brought the intensity. U2 were having a great time on stage. It's weird people were so negative about the tour when it was a legendary show for people who went.

Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Popmart at The Colosseum was my first concert ever. I was about 15 years old and just getting over my Jr. High Black Flag Dead Kennedys Nirvana stage. Boy, War, Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby sounded perfect - sounded like the new me. I had that live ZooTV tape. Rattle and Hum. Red Rocks. The Unforgettable Fire documentary. I was obsessed.

I was so excited to finally experience a fabled U2 concert and what I got was a stoned transvestite dancing in front of me, blocking my view and a transvestite Bono singing out of a lemon. It was weird

Rage Against The Machine was awesome.

To u2's credit, even though All That You Cant Leave Behind and Elevation were relatively crap albums, their live shows on those tours were fucking great and full of some of their best songs like Bullet, In Gods Country etc.

Re: Popmart - Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Popmart was also my first concert ever. I was invited to come with my buddy in high school without only limited knowledge of the band. The concert really changed my musical life. I loved how the band had embraced electronics to make something that sounded so different than other bands of the time. And I believe that really kicked into high gear initially with Zoo TV but the Pop era definately took that to another level. And the messages about media overload and mass consumerism really connected with me and I could see that this was a band that had something to say. U2 later opened my eyes not only to their rest of their wonderful catalogue of music but also to many new artists in different genres. I still say that the initial reason I got into dance music was for all the fabulous remixes they were putting out at that time with Paul Oakenfold and such.

The Totals for the Entire 93 date POPMART TOUR are GROSS: $171,677,024 ATTENDANCE: 3,935,936 AVERAGE GROSS: $1,845,989.5 AVERAGE ATTENDANCE: 42,322
I have exact statistics for 71 of the 93 POPMART shows. I was able to come up with the totals for each leg of the tour and the entire tour itself because those figures were printed by Amusement Business back in 97-98.(Amusementbusiness.com)